The CEO of major publisher Stranglehold Games, Dave Clarke, made a plea in a press release earlier this morning for assistance funding their newest Kickstarter game.
“Greetings, faithful devoted, as you are no doubt well aware, the chances of our newest game hitting its funding goal are pretty slim at this stage,“ Clarke begins.“We here at Stranglehold Games value honesty and integrity above all else. That is why we are coming to you today.”
The press release continues, laying out the details of a confusing tale of misunderstood contracts, unpaid fees, mixed streams of income, and a looming deadline.
“When we originally obtained the license for Spongebob Squarepants Kaiju Battle Chronicles Legacy, we were very excited that we would have the opportunity to bring this quality game to our fans. The blind dice drafting system was like nothing we’d ever seen before and the card flipping auction mechanic only served to seal the deal.”
Clarke continues, describing issues that his company encountered with the licensing agreement. After getting off to a solid start, the campaign quickly lost its momentum.
“That wasn’t a huge concern. We just figured that, if it failed to fund, we’d just regroup, reassess, and relaunch. It wasn’t until our company lawyers re-read the licensing contract that we realized that unless the campaign actually funded, we would lose the license and Spongebob Squarepants Kaiju Battle Chronicles Legacy would never see the light of day. In an effort to save you, our dear fans, from such a fate, we decided that the best course of action would be to launch a new campaign on Indiegogo to raise enough funds that they could be injected into the Kickstarter campaign to ensure that it would fund. That’s come with its own challenges.”
The main challenge, it turns out, was the tight time table imposed on the Indiegogo campaign because of the short time period left on the Kickstarter campaign. Stranglehold Games offered their Indiegogo backers very little beyond “some Kickstarter exclusives for Spongebob Squarepants Kaiju Battle Chronicles Legacy” but that doesn’t appear to have worked in their favor.
“With only 10 hours left in the Indiegogo campaign, we’re still $50,000 away from our funding goal. So that’s why we’re coming to you, hat in hand, to ask you to support our GoFundMe to rescue our Indiegogo campaign to support our Kickstarter efforts so that we can get Spongebob Squarepants Kaiju Battle Chronicles Legacy into your eager hands.”
Clarke continues, “We’re not just trying to take your money. I swear. When have you ever known a major publisher to misuse a crowdfunding platform? I honestly can’t think of a single instance.”
With only a handful of hours left on the clock, it remains to be seen if Stranglehold Games’s stratagem will be successful.
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